My new digs at the Ben Avery gun range. I've got my very own water faucet, a shower next door, and a dumpster at the entrance to my boondocking site.... I don't know about you, but to a boondocker that much luxury is a little bit of Heaven.

After stopping in downtown Wickenburg and filling up my empty 5 gallon propane tank at $2.99 a gallon, I headed East, first on 60 and then on 74, and by 10 o'clock I was pulling into the Ben Avery gun range a wee bit north of Phoenix Arizona.

They accepted me at the campground with a minimum amount of begging and pleading on my part and in a matter of minutes, $72 poorer I pulled into my boondocking spot for a weeks stay at the largest shooting range in the West, and even better, there's hardly anyone else around. I'm also right next to a restroom , shower room building, with a water faucet in my boondocking site, and a dumpster right near the corner of my site.

For those of you that don't often boondock you probably don't realize how thrilling it is to be able to walk 50 feet and throw your trash in a dumpster.... ANYTIME I FEEL LIKE IT!! Boondocker's get used to being thankful for the small things in life.

I was able to park the bronco with the refrigerator on the shady side, which helps the fridge stay cool. And ordered a few things I needed from Amazon to be shipped to the gun range.

 So now, I'm in my happy place, I'm around folks I can relate to, my Internet is down right speedy, and there's even a little cloudy weather predicted for Phoenix, so maybe I can get a decent sunrise or sunset picture... All's right with the world.

                                                            Theboondork

Cowboys! I was talking about boondocking at Ben Avery's gun range, and suddenly there's cowboys. I guess that's what happens when I have left over pictures from the last place I was at.

There's a lot of frustration on this cowboys face, and it's all because of that empty loop hanging in the air... Sometimes the cowboy's win sometimes the steer wins.

I don't know how these cowboys keep from getting tangled up in all that rope.

It seems to me being a Healer like the cowboy in the picture above would be the worst job to have. I mean, what are the odds of actually being able to rope a steers hind-legs while he's running?

I used to think that it would be impossible to rope both of the hind-legs of a running steer, even though I saw people do it, it just didn't look possible. But it's all about using the proper technique, and hopefully these next three photos will show how it's done.

First of all the Healer that's going to rope the steer's hind legs throws a big loop in his lasso, and it's big for a reason

When the Healer throws that big loop, the top of his loop hits the side or the shanks of the steers leg, which causes the bottom of the loop to wrap around the steers hind legs.

 The steer is being pulled forward by the Headers horse, so when the loop wraps around the steer's hind legs for a split second the loop is open and the steer's forward motion pulls his hind legs into the loop.

But that big loop has a lot of slack once the steer steps into the loop, so the Healer only has a second to take up that slack or the steer will step out of the loop.

So to keep the steer from stepping out of the loop the healers horse has to quickly back up, and at the same time the Healer has to rare back as fast and as far as possible to get the slack out of the loop. And remember all of this is taking place in five or six seconds.

There's a reason this is called TEAM roping. Because those two cowboys, and those two horses have to be perfectly in sync or none of this will work.

I took this snapshot the other day when there were still some clouds in the sky.

As usual the pictures and my blog post don't match up in the least, but that's what works best for me and doesn't cause me to use any more effort or imagination than is absolutely necessary.

I'm thinking tomorrow of going to Ben Avery's gun range and boondocking there for a week or so. But, unfortunately, not only have I not made up my mind to do that yet, but the State has promulgated some new rules about camping there; since Ben Avery's gun range is run by the State, the Fish and Game Department to be exact.

 I'm not even sure I'm allowed to walk in the door and get a boondocking spot for a week without a reservation like I've done for the past 15 years, but I figure I might show up at the door tomorrow just to see what happens.

If it turns into a big hassle at Ben Avery's, I will drive to nearby Lake Pleasant and stay at a free BLM boondocking area just down the road from the lake.

It would be handy if I could stay at Ben Avery's, even though it cost $72 a week to boondock there, it's only about 3 miles from all of the shopping I would ever need except a Walmart, and even Walmart is in only about 5 miles away. I also need to order a few things from Amazon, and Ben Avery's is a good place to pick up an Amazon order, which I've done many times in the past.

Ben Avery's also has a lot better Internet speed than I've been getting at Quartzsite or Wickenburg. I need to do some firmware updates on my camera equipment and I feel safer doing firmware updates when I've got stable Internet service.

Ben Avery's also gives me a feeling of absolute safety that I don't get boondocking anywhere else. It might be because everyone there is armed to the teeth, and nobody gonna mess with that many armed people. Or it could be that being an ex-hunter, shooter, and gun collector, I fit right in with those folks and share their values. Whatever it is, I feel safer at Ben Avery's than anyplace else I stay. I just hope the State's goofy rules haven't made it too difficult for me to stay there.

                                                                     Theboondork

I decided I would take a walk and instead of the usual hiking trails everyone goes on I decided to walk on a Jeep trail that motorcycles and 4 x 4's use.

At the beginning of the 4 x 4 riding area there's this very nice boondocking site. The off-road guys seem to take care of it pretty well. The diameter of the large outside ring is a little over 20 feet. It took a lot of time and a lot of rocks to do that.

You can see why I don't normally walk on this Jeep trail. When you have motorcycles, and Rzr's flying by, sometimes there's not much room for me to get out of the way if I'm walking. But I didn't see or hear anyone in the area so I deemed it safe enough.

I'm well acquainted with these roads since I ride the little 250 Beta on them whenever I come to Box Wash, but I don't often walk them because some of these Hills are pretty steep, and the semi-round gravel makes it treacherous walking up or down hill.

But this is a hilly area with rolling hills that go on for miles and miles which is why the off-road guys like it so much, it's a bit of a challenge, but nothing most people can't do.

My poor little Beta 250, it's heart would break if it knew I was here walking these hills, while it freezes back in Denver.

Sometimes I would get off the Jeep trail and walk down the wash. I like walking in a wash, when it rains hard the wash floods and everything changes. So every time I walk down a wash it looks different. I like a nu view.

Returning home to my not so well camouflaged bronco.

I ran out of propane this morning and had to get my spare tank out of the truck's passenger seat and hook it up. It sure is convenient to have two tanks already hooked up like the Arctic Fox does, although I've never used the Arctic Fox's propane regulator on automatic where they switch over without me doing anything. I've always wanted to know when the tank was empty, so I wait till the refrigerator quits, then I go outside and manually switch the tanks.

It is easier to deal with the 5-gallon tank in the bronco than the 10-gallon tanks in the Arctic Fox. Even though I've got to lift the bronco tank as high as my head, it's still easier than lifting a 10-gallon tank waist-high in the Arctic Fox. If I decide to full-time in a truck camper, dealing with 10-gallon tanks will be a thing of the past, and thank goodness for that, because I don't ever recall seeing anything but 5-gallon tanks in a truck camper. Some truck campers have two five-gallon tanks, but I've never seen a truck camper with a 10-gallon tank.

I've always kept up with my propane use in the Arctic Fox and do the same in the bronco, and a 10-gallon propane tank in the Arctic Fox lasted roughly a month, depending, of course, on how cold it was and how much heating I had to do. And so far, I'm getting about two weeks out of a 5-gallon bronco tank, and that's with very little heating.

 So when it starts getting chilly enough to use some heat, I'm going to try to switch to my Mr Heater, Little Buddy radiant heater, which will use far less propane than my bronco furnace, and make no noise at all compared to the roar of the Broncos furnace which is literally 4 feet from where I'm sitting.

I brought an electric heater from the Arctic Fox with me in case my carefully thought out boondocking system utterly fails me, and I have to resort to an RV Park. And even though I may have to resort to an RV Park, I would never resort to a Resort; a Resort is too expensive to resort to, so a Resort would be my last resort.

                                                                 Theboondork

I've noticed in my travels that some boondocker's just love to make their boondocking spots more homey. And these next two snapshots are a good example of that. I'm not a campfire person myself but I can understand why some folks are, so building a pretty fire ring seems like a good way to make  someone's boondocking site more homelike.

It looks like somebody is missing the good old days of having a yard and a garden to keep up with. These folks made a little garden in their boondocking spot, and highlighted it with pretty quartz rocks. I myself am far too lazy to expend this much effort in a place I'm only gonna be for a couple of weeks at the most. But who knows, maybe these folks are missing their home, or maybe beautifying the place is one of their hobbies. Whatever it is, I enjoy seeing it.... But I don't want to have to take care of it.

Boondocking sunrise Congress Arizona. You can see the little rock outlined garden that's in the picture above, a little left of center.